Santo Domingo

We met my parents at the Iglesia de Santo Domingo on Tuesday. Construction on the church was begun in 1572, but took 200 years to complete.

The church is extremely ornate, with carved plaster statues and stucco flowers. No part of this church is unadorned – everywhere you look, there is something to see.

An altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe was being built, and it was fascinating to see the process.

Next to the church there is a convent, which is now houses a museum as well as a library of books hundreds of years old.

The ex-convent is a beautiful building, with several patios and lovely halls.

The museum is quite interesting and presents a comprehensive history of Oaxaca with artifacts of each time period. Particularly impressive were the treasures of a tomb found at Monte Alban. As I’ve mentioned before, most of the tombs found at the archeological ruins we’ve been to were looted hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago. The items found in this tomb are simply astonishing: gold and turquoise jewelry, figurines, intricately carved bones, pottery, and much more.

The monks’ former garden is now an enthobotanical garden. Unfortunately, there were no self-guided tours of the garden, so we had to be content to see it from the convent.

By the time we finished touring the museum, we were ready for lunch. We walked down the pedestrian walkway in search of a restaurant, and of course couldn’t find anything we liked. We ended up back at the zocalo, where four of us ordered tlayudas. They were huge! And delicious. After stuffing ourselves silly, we were ready for a siesta, so we went our separate ways. We had a relaxing afternoon and a very light dinner!